In the Pink

Some time ago in another place I voiced (a little tongue-in-cheek) the opinion that A.W. Pink may not have been genuinely converted.  I based this speculation on the fact that though he travelled the world, living on three continents, he could not find a single church that was worth joining – and this at a time when, for example, Lloyd-Jones was ministering in Westminster.  ‘They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us’ (1 John 2.19).  I used the analogy, I remember, of a ‘minister’ conducting adulterous affairs on several different continents and arrogantly defending his right to do so.  We would not consider a man who was so contemptuous of his wife and marriage vows to be a believer or, at very least, a man to be admired.  Why then are we so wimpy about a man who was so contemptuous of Christ’s bride?

Recently, Pyromaniac Dan Phillips weighed in with his critique of Pink and does it so much better than I.  Tom Chantry’s replies (several of them) in the ‘comments’ section are illuminating and worth reading, too but the rest of the comments – not so much.

Of course, I have no way of knowing the state of Pink’s heart, regenerate or not.  But let it be faced about professed Bible teachers who dismiss all of evangelicalism that does not agree with them on every jot and tittle.  Such men are not to be followed.  They are not to be supported.  They are not to be admired.  Their souls are in danger.

Let the reader understand.

Particular, and serious

Well, it's the Lord's Day - time for something a little more important than a travelog.  I've been thinking for a while of a post on particular redemption; I may still do so, but this week Dan Phillips got there before me - here and here.  Dan's a great writer; he did a better job than I would have.

The only thing of substance that I'd take issue with in Dan's posts is this:

• The reason I usually call myself a 4.95-point Calvinist (+/-) is that, while every one of the other four points is expressly taught in Scripture, there is no single verse that expressly says, in so many words "Jesus died to atone fully for the sins of the elect and nobody else."

Now Dan's logic is better than this, almost always.  (We won't say anything about his dispensationalism for the moment...)   The truth is, though, he's wrong here.  Consider: 

• there isn't a single verse that expressly says, in so many words, 'God chose individuals to be saved, unconditionally and before the beginning of time, and the faith those individuals have is his gift to them.'

And for that matter,

• there isn't a single verse that expressly says, in so many words, 'There is only one God and he has always existed in three distinct persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), so that each person is truly and wholly God yet the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Spirit and the Spirit is not the Father.'

No, there isn't a single verse that says either of those things.  Yet the Bible indubitably teaches both of them. 

Dan know that this isn't how theology works - one single verse that summarises a particular doctrine.  It's sad, then, that he seems to fudge (just a little bit) on particular redemption.

And here are two verses that come pretty close:

• For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45)

• Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (Ephesians 5.25)

Much Missed

Dan Phillips’ blog entry on ‘How flu is better and worsethan cold’ reminded me, oddly enough, of Mum.

Mum never had a cold; she always had flu.  I’d seen a TV program where one of the telly doctors (Hilary Jones, I think) had said ‘The difference is this: If somebody tells you there’s a fifty pound note on the front door step and you don’t care enough to go get it, you’ve got flu.  If you can get out of bed at all, you’ve got a cold.’

So I shared this piece of medical wisdom with my Mum.  She agreed.  Definitely, she said.  Then she added ‘You really feel bad with flu.  I had flu last week, and could only just manage to go to work...’

She was a character, Mum.  And she’s much, much missed still.

Leaky Canoneers

Over at Biblical Christianity today 

( http://bibchr.blogspot.com/ ) the inestimable Dan Phillips (always provocative, usually right, sometimes wrong,  rotten taste in music)  has had another go at what he calls ‘Leaky Canoneers’.  (Well, somebody has to.)  It’s a phrase that he uses for those who formally affirm Sola Scriptura but in practice think God is whispering in their ears.  That is to say, our charismatic friends.

What he doesn’t mention – but I think would acknowledge – is that it is not only charismatics who can be guilty.  I know a pastor in Christ who was told on one occasion that his (really very mild) taste in music was demonic.  To the inevitable question ‘How would you justify that from Scripture?’ came the answer ‘I don’t need the Bible for this; my conscience is all the authority I need.’

It isn’t, of course, a new problem and it is one that the authors of the Westminster Confession addressed.  Look how well they put it:

Chapter 1.VI: The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men. 

IX. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture, is the Scripture itself; and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it may be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.

X. The Supreme Judge, by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.

Note especially that last paragraph: what do the Worthy Westminsters mean by ‘private spirits’?  They mean that those who ‘just know’ they’re right must submit to Scripture.  Those whom ‘God has told’ they are right must submit to Scripture.  As Dan argues elsewhere – to be forced to submit to anything else is the worst kind of bondage.

Thanks be to God for his holy word!

Beam me up, Deacon

A phenomena that hasn't yet made much inroad in the UK is that of using technology to 'broadcast' the sermon from a popular preacher into other congregations miles - many miles, maybe - away. One church in the US is apparently considering a 'satellite' congregation in, er, Scotland. I do hope they know about time differences.

The idea is a congregation meets together under its own 'service leader'. They have their own music, readings, notices etc - and then, at a predetermined time, the video screen goes on and they all listen to the sermon. Usually a well-known preacher is preaching it, at that moment, to 'his own' congregation. It's no different, a mega-church may argue, from what's been done for years, with folks in 'overflow rooms' watching the sermon on screen. It's just that now the 'overflow room' is further away!

Not everybody's happy: Dan Phillips for example asks

• Think about this. Christianity Today reports that, in 2002, 2000 clergy were looking for jobs. In 2009, 5000 clergy were looking for jobs. Yet let one personality become popular, and what do churches do? Beam that one personality to multiple locations. Hm... are the two phenomena related?

My guess is there may be some correlation, but probably not a lot.

Actually, the phenomena isn't that new, only the technology. What was once technologically impossible became possible but expensive, then easy and cheap. But there have always been preachers whose ministries have attracted crowds. Spurgeon, Lloyd-Jones, Daniel Rowland - many, many others. And there have always been folks who thought that they should get rid of the crowds! 'Send them away! There are struggling churches nearby - let them go there. Or let them plant a church; it's wrong to have that big a crowd.' When I was a pastor with Grace Baptist Churches, I heard it suggested that any church bigger than 50 was sinful. (Naturally, it was suggested without any Biblical warrant - there isn't any - and by a man whose church had never got anywhere near 50!)

Should such men do anything about it? Well, many do - Spurgeon for example planted many churches, often sending them a preacher he had trained himself. Yet the Tab continued to be full.

Here's a man who is being blessed under a particular ministry, and is actively involved - as a result - in the work of that church. Should we insist he go somewhere where he finds the ministry to be less of a blessing? On what ground?

'For the sake of the Kingdom!' someone cries. 'That's the ground.' OK - but how do you know that the Kingdom will prosper if that man's blessing decreases? Why are you so sure that the Kingdom will not prosper more if one church grows large and is able to do many things that small churches - even working together - cannot easily do? I grant that 'the Kingdom' is all-important. But why are we so sure that a lot of weak churches are better for the Kingdom than a few big ones?

My own church is middle-sized, rather than large: 250 or so on a good morning (it used to be higher, but we've planted a second congregation.) And I've had a man say to me 'It's time you sent some of your people to help a struggling cause.' But the one time we tried to do that, the 'struggling cause' didn't want it. I offered to try and lead my church to a) send them a preacher that I knew they already liked, b) help support him financially, c) encourage a team of people to come with him and help in the work. But the small church's leadership weren't interested.

Actually, I can conceive of why that might be. An influx of Moordowners would have been enough to give them the majority vote in church meetings. They could have changed anything they wanted, to make it more like Moordown. (Or less, depending on who went, of course.) And if you're tempted to say 'Gracious and spiritual people wouldn't do that,' - well, it depends. If they honestly thought that 'the way we do things' brings more glory to God than 'the way they do things', then of course they would. And anyway, if a struggling church is going to stop being a struggling church, something has to change - probably quite a lot of 'somethings'.

What's this got to do with 'beaming preachers'? Quite a bit, I think.

Suppose Pastor Jones has a remarkable ministry and people are already crowding into his church, while others are listening over the internet regularly. And two hundred miles away a group of people, who all listen to Pastor Jones, live in the town of Drysville. They've discovered that when they give recordings of Pastor Jones to their neighbours, their neighbours listen and get converted. So they all begin to meet together on Sunday morning. One option is to call a pastor to serve them. But someone suggests 'beaming in' Pastor Jones, at least for a little while. What should be the great principle that guides them?

Surely it's this: would a resident pastor be more effective, or less, in building up the saints and reaching the lost? They may decide 'less', and arrange to beam in Jones.

Mind you - I would hope it would only be a temporary expedient: for there's more to being a pastor than preaching.

Dissing Dispies?  #2: Hermeneutics

In my first look at Dan Phillips ‘Twenty-five stupid reasons for dissing dispensationalism’   I tried to show how Dan begins the process of softening us up to believe that Dispensationalists have got it right by using an ‘ad hominem’ argument: the Reformed, and especially one Reformed Great, have been really unkind to Dispensationalists in general and Dan in particular; have a look – I’m not going to repeat myself.

There’s a second preliminary Dan gives us before he gets to the 25 of the title – the question of hermeneutics.  ‘…when I consistently apply the hermeneutic that God used to save me, I end up Reformed… and dispensationalist.’

What’s hermeneutics?  It’s the science, or art, (it’s both) of interpreting the Biblical text.  But isn’t it obvious what a text means?  Well, yes – usually – hence Dan’s principle

When the plain sense of Scripture makes good sense, seek no other sense. Therefore, take every word in its primary, ordinary, usual, literal meaning, unless the facts of the immediate context, studied in the light of related passages and fundamental and axiomatic truths, clearly indicate otherwise.

 It’s called ‘grammatico-historical’ hermeneutics, or sometimes the historico-grammatical principle: you take into account the grammar, and the history.  In brief, a text means what it says, and especially what the first readers would have understand it to mean.

Dan’s right – it’s fundamental.  It saves us making blunders like Augustine’s, insisting that in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the two coins were the sacraments, the inn was the church, the inn-keeper the Pope, etcetera.  

But it’s also a bit more complicated than that – for a slavish adherence to h/g won’t save us from Origen’s misunderstanding of Matthew 19:12 – it won’t stop us castrating ourselves.  And some of us are really keen not to go that way...

Let me illustrate by taking the matter of prayer.  Jesus says

In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. (John 16.23)

The ‘historico’ bit would have us ask: when will this promise be kept?  And the immediate context tells us – when the disciples see Jesus again, after his death.  That is – when he is risen.  What does the plain meaning of the text (the grammatico bit) tell us?  That in that day, Christians can have absolutely anything they ask for – or at least, the apostles can.  Winning the lottery?  Perfect health?  Therein, you see, is the Prosperity Gospel.  Dan knows this, of course, and makes the point by saying ‘in the light of related passages and fundamental and axiomatic truths.’

Once we look at other things the Bible says about prayer, for example James 4.3

When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures...

…a restriction or qualification is there that isn’t in the first text.  So, to apply the h/g principle properly, the context of a text that has to be taken into account is the whole of Scripture.  And that, some of us think, is where dispies may be going wrong.

Dan – in another blog entry – references a speaker at this year's Shepherds' Conference  who said ‘you might be a dispensationalist if you think the primary meaning of an Old Testament text is found in the authorial intent of the OT writer as determined by historical-grammatical hermeneutics’.

True – but you might also be wrong.  Sometimes, at least, the true meaning of an Old Testament text is found in the New Testament.  Isaiah 7.14 springs to mind. 

It isn’t that our dispie friends aren’t aware of this – the same speaker says

You may believe that God, in the New Testament, may do more than what the OT author meant, or apply the OT passage in ways not seen by the OT author, but God will never do less or go contrary to the original meaning of the OT author. Thus, the meaning of OT passages is anchored in the OT passages themselves.

The question has to be:  is that the way the New Testament writers themselves see the Old Testament?  When the apostles on the Day of Pentecost are accused of drunkenness, they say ‘No, this is what was spoken of by the prophet Joel’ and goes on to quote Joel 2:28-32.  According to Peter, Joel is prophesying Pentecost – but it doesn’t look like that in its original context.  In fact, Joel prophesies (and Peter quotes) ‘The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood’ as part of the same prophecy.  ‘This is that’?  Yes: but we know – because Acts tells us – that it isn’t the end of the world.

Similarly, the true meaning of Amos 9:11,12 is not the restoration of Israel to its nation, says Acts: rather, it foretells the ingathering of the Gentiles in the gospel age (Acts 15:16ff)

Hermeneutics is a difficult issue.  But DJP simply isn’t fair when he implies – and even says – that dispies are the ones ‘who still take all of the Bible seriously’.  That ain’t the way it is, Dan.

Dissing Dispies? #1: Preliminaries

I’m sitting at the moment in a beautifully-placed little mezzanine study in Grindelwald, Switzerland. Six feet to my right is a French window through which the Eiger – North Face, I think – can be clearly seen only a short distance away. Evening is falling; the day is almost over – and it’s been a good day. And because I’m on holiday, there’s really nothing pressing to do – a wonderful feeling. But – well, you’ve got to do something, and I’ve been thinking for a while about Dan Phillips’ blog post ‘Twenty-five stupid reasons for dissing dispensationalism.’ I’ve wanted to respond to this for a while, hoping to use it to sort out my own thinking. But time’s always short; except now. So I thought I’d get started. Before I begin to interact with Dan, here a couple of preliminaries – even pre-preliminaries.

#1. I like Dan Phillips.
Actually, I’ve never met him.  People are a lot easier to like before you meet them, aren't they?  But we’ve emailed a few times and I follow his Biblical Christianity blog and his contributions to Pyromaniacs. He has a wicked sense of humour, a swashbuckling approach to debate (which is fun when he’s attacking others, but sinful of course when he’s attacking a position I agree with) and a humanity in his writing that’s appealing.  I like him.

#2. I respect Dan Phillips.
His posts give real evidence of a heart that loves the Bible, a mind that’s studied the Bible, a sensitive conscience and an intellect that has no need to be ashamed. Of course, he’s wackily wrong about dispensationalism (he even admits he’s not sure about some parts of it that – surely – ought to be settled? ‘...five points, seven dispensations (+/-)’ – come on Dan, you should know that if you’re a dispensationalist! I mean ‘two testaments, four gospels (+/-)’ wouldn’t really impress, would it?).  But I respect him; he thinks, he debates, and he does it well.

#3. I agree with Dan Phillips – on most things. 
His swashbuckling defences of Calvinism are spot on.  His perception of the problems of the charismatic movement, likewise. I agree with Dan Phillips – on most things except dispensationalism. And cats.

So, given those things - if I appear to be dissing Dan, I'm not.  I MAY be dissing his argument (or trying to); I MAY be dissing dispensationalism (ditto).  Chances are, though, I'm just teasing, or trying to swashbuckle a little myself.

Oh, and one more thing.  In the blog I've mentioned, Dan doesn't actually defend or explain dispensationalism much; that's not his point.  He does that a bit in What dispensationalism isn't.  Consequently, you may note that this series of blogs is not really a critique of dispensationalism, either.  That may come later - or it may not.  But this series is really no more than a reflection on Dan's twenty-five stupid reasons - and an attempt to show i) there aren't 25 and ii) they're not all as stupid as Dan suggests.

OK - got that?  Then I can begin.  Note first the way

He softens you up to believe
It's called an ad hominem argument ('against the man') and it's bad form, as well as having no value in logic. His first paragraph suggests - nay, states - that non-dispensationalists were filled with envy in the seventies, that their literature isn't real literature, and their attitude is sourpuss.  (Apart from that we're OK, right Dan?)

Where my non-d friends have succeeded in winning people to their views, it is 'more... through image than substance'; that is, they haven't won the argument, merely convinced people that 'it isn't cool to be a dispensationalist'.

Then, he turns his guns on one particular non-dispensationalist, William Hendriksen.  Now, WH has been dead for around a quarter of a century, so he's not in a position to defend himself when Dan says 'he slapped me down something fierce'.  Maybe he did; maybe he didn't. 

Maybe from WH's point of view the encounter looked very different.  At any rate, Dan's words '[h]e told me to read this and that book, and not to write him again until I was 100%' COULD mean he said 'My dear Dan, I find it impossible to answer your question on the problem of evil starting from your own dispensational base.  But you may find this book helpful, and that book.  If you read them and still have problems, get back to me by all means.'  Or it COULD mean he said 'You great ignorant upstart - of course you have difficulty with the problem of evil!  Idiot!  Anybody who holds your view would.  Now, I'm really too busy to bother with idiots - but if you read this book, and that book, and grovel a bit - I might be prepared to give you a bit more time.  Get back to me then and we'll see.'

Either response from WH would be covered by Dan's actual words.  But Dan's tone ('slapped me down something fierce' and 'he even suggested...') suggest it's on a spectrum nearer the latter.  So, plainly, non-d's have no real argument, but resort to fierce behaviour - even the greatest of them.

And so, dear reader, we're softened up to believe that what non-d's say against dispensationalism is going to be stupid, and maybe even reflect their sinful, sourpuss, envious, resentful hearts...

Next time, we'll come to 'the hermeneutic God used to save me (Dan)'.  Till then, don't go talking to any amillenialists, now.